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Does Watching Law & Order SVU Make You More Likely to Help a Rape Victim?

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Does Watching Law & Order SVU Make You More Likely to Help a Rape Victim?

Written by Brian Krans
| Published on February 24, 2013

A poll of college students shows that people who watch crime dramas like Law & Order: SVU are more likely to intervene during a sexual assault.

Violence in the media is a hot-button issue, especially when it comes
to the way viewing violent images affects a person’s attitude toward
crime.

While opponents of media violence normally focus on
whether violence in television, movies, and video games makes a person
more aggressive, new research hints at a positive effect of popular
crime dramas: willingness to help a victim.

Researchers at
Washington State University (WSU) found that people who watch popular
prime-time crime dramas like Law & Order and CSI say they would be
more likely to intervene during a sexual assault than those who don’t
watch these programs. The study was published in the Journal of Health Communications.

“Although
content analyses have not established whether crime dramas portray
individuals intervening in sexual assault, we knew from watching some of
the programs that at least some episodes featured bystanders who
intervened before the crime or who came forward to help after the crime
was committed,” lead researcher Stacey Hust, associate professor of
communication at the Edward R. Murrow College of Communications, said in
a press release. “We wanted to see if watching these programs was
associated with bystander intervention.”

To a certain extent, it was.

SVU Viewers Are More Likely to Help

One show that focuses on sexual assault and the impact it has on victims is Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Now in its 14th season, every new episode is watched by close to eight million people, according to the Nielsen ratings.

The
show has portrayed bystanders coming to a victim’s aid, whether by
calling the police or by directly approaching the perpetrator. The WSU
researchers hypothesized that shows like SVU could help quell myths
about rape and empower viewers to intervene in real-life situations.

To
test their theory, the WSU team gave questionnaires to 462 college
freshman to determine their attitudes about sexual assault and the myths
surrounding rape. The questions included, "If a woman doesn’t
physically resist, does it constitute rape?" and, "How confident are you
that you would intervene in a sexual assault scenario?"

College
students are an important demographic to test because one in four
college women will experience sexual assault during her time at
university.

Researchers say those who reported watching crime
dramas were more likely to say they'd help in situations where a woman
was at risk of being sexually assaulted.

Attitudes About Rape Affect Intervention

Women’s rights advocates have been fighting back against myths associated with rape for decades, especially blaming the victim.

A
major factor in determining whether someone will intervene in a sexual
assault scenario is how that person views rape, namely their attitude
toward victims. Researchers found that people who were more likely to
accept rape myths—that the victim's clothes were too revealing, for
example—as reality were less likely to intervene in a sexual assault
scenario.

However, respondents also said they would be more
likely to intervene if they believed their friends would do the same and
if they were confident in their ability to help.

“Increasing
bystander intervention is critical to sexual assault prevention
efforts,” Hust said. “Bystander intervention both creates an environment
in which sexual assault is not tolerated and an environment supportive
of victims.”

To some extent, then, fictional detectives Olivia
Benson and Elliot Stabler are increasing the likelihood that sexual
assault victims receive the aid they desperately need.

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